Egypt (La Mort de Philae) eBook

At the first pylons I have to make a detour.
They are so ruinous that their blocks, fallen down
on all sides, have closed the passage. Here used
to watch, on right and left, two upright giants of
red granite from Syene. Long ago in times no
longer precisely known, they were broken off, both
of them, at the height of the loins. But their
muscular legs have kept their proud, marching attitude,
and each in one of the armless hands, which reach
to the end of the cloth that girds their loins, clenches
passionately the emblem of eternal life. And this
Syenite granite is so hard that time has not altered
it in the least; in the midst of the confusion of
stones the thighs of these mutilated giants gleam
as if they had been polished yesterday.

Farther on we come upon the second pylons, foundered
also, before which stands a row of Pharaohs.

On every side the overthrown blocks display their
utter confusion of gigantic things in the midst of
the sand which continues patiently to bury them.
And here now are the third pylons, flanked by their
two marching giants, who have neither head nor shoulders.
And the road, marked majestically still by the debris,
continues to lead towards the desert.

And then the fourth and last pylons, which seem at
first sight to mark the extremity of the ruins, the
beginning of the desert nothingness. Time-worn
and uncrowned, but stiff and upright still, they seem
to be set there so solidly that nothing could ever
overthrow them. The two colossal statues which
guard them on the right and left are seated on thrones.
One, that on the eastern side, has almost disappeared.
But the other stands out entire and white, with the
whiteness of marble, against the brown-coloured background
of the enormous stretch of wall covered with hieroglyphs.
His face alone has been mutilated; and he preserves
still his imperious chin, his ears, his Sphinx’s
headgear, one might almost say his meditative expression,
before this deployment of the vast solitude which
seems to begin at his very feet.

Here however was only the boundary of the quarters
of the God Amen. The boundary of Thebes was much
farther on, and the avenue which will lead me directly
to the home of the cat-headed goddesses extends farther
still to the old gates of the town; albeit you can
scarcely distinguish it between the double row of
Krio-sphinxes all broken and well-nigh buried.

The day falls, and the dust of Egypt, in accordance
with its invariable practice every evening, begins
to resemble in the distance a powder of gold.
I look behind me from time to time at the giant who
watches me, seated at the foot of his pylon on which
the history of a Pharaoh is carved in one immense
picture. Above him and above his wall, which grows
each minute more rose-coloured, I see, gradually mounting
in proportion as I move away from it, the great mass
of the palaces of the centre, the hypostyle hall,
the halls of Thothmes and the obelisks, all the entangled
cluster of those things at once so grand and so dead,
which have never been equalled on earth.